Resetting mechanism



1. L. WHEELER.

RESETTING MECHANISM.

APPLICATION FILED APR.28, 1919.

Patenwd Sept. 5, 1922.

2 SHEETSSHEET lllYVE/VTOR Q MK J. L. WHEELER.

RESET-TING MECHANISM.

MPLICATION HLED mms. 1919.

1,42 ,407, PatentedSept. 5,1922

2 SHEETS-SHEET 2. 2o 3 19A X/AVZ 7m MXXWW,XMM+W' Patented Sept. 5, 1922.

UNITED STATES 1,423,407 PATENT OFFICE.

JOHII L. WHEELER, 0]? ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI, ASSIGNOR, BY MES NE ASSIGNMENTS, TO THE MEASUREGRAPH COMPANY, A CORPORATION OF DELAWARE.

BESETTING MECHAN ISM.

Application filed April 28, 1819. Serial No. 293,211.

T 0 all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, JOHN L. WHEELER, a citizen of the United States, residing at St. Louis, in the State of Missouri, have in vented certain new and {useful Improvements in Resetting Mechanism, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to improvements in resetting mechanism. It is particularly adapted for use in resetting or turning back to zero the numeral wheels of a mileage counter, constituting part of the socalled speedometers used on automobiles. It is adapted also for use with other types of mechanism, however.

In most types-of speedometers now in use two distinct operations or movements are necessary to reset the number wheels to zero. In one type of mechanism, one of the movements places stops in the paths of stop pins carried by the number wheels and after this has been done the rotation of a knurled disc effects the rotation of the number wheels until their stop pins engage the stops. In another type of mechanism, a longitudinal movement of the shaft 15 employed to disconnect the number wheels from the carrier mechanism, after which a knurled disc is rotated to bring the number wheels to their zero position.

The general object of the present invention is to provide means whereby the mileage counter numeral wheels may all be reset to zero simultaneously, by a single movement of a lever. Another object is to provide a resetting attachment adapted for use with standard speedometers without requiring material alteration of the latter. Other objects and advantages will be apparent from a consideration of the following description and of the drawings which illustrate 'a preferred embodiment of the invention.

Figure 1 "is a front elevation of the speedometer with the resetting device attached;

Fig. 2 is a side elevation thereof;

Fig. 3 is an enlarged sectional view on the line 3-3 of Figure 1;

Fig. 4: is a section on the line 4-4 on Fig. 8;

Fig. 5 is a section on the line 5.-5 on Fig. 8;

Fig. 6 is a section on the line 6-6 of Fig. 8;

on. as shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 7 is a section on the line 7--7 of Fig. 8;

Fig. 8 is a top plan view of the resetting attachment Fig. 9 is a sectional View on the line 9-9 of Fig. 7; and

Fig. 10 is a sectional view 1010 of Fig. 3.

The resetting device is shown as attached to or constituting a part of a well-known type of speedometer, which latter will, therefore, be described only in sufficient detail to illustrate the co-operation of the resetting device therewit- I The face plate or dial 9'has three openings therein through one of which the speed indicating cylinder 10 is visible, indicating the speed in miles per hour. Through another opening numeral wheels 11 are visible, indicating the mileage for the particular trip, and through the third opening numeral wheels 12 are visible, indicating the total mileage for successive trips. These dials and numeral wheels are driven from a suitable rotatable member 13 through mechanism of the speedometer not fully disclosed herein. as it forms no part of the present invention. The mechanism is enclosed in a suitable housing comprising a front plate 14 with an opening therein to expose the dial 9, an l having a plurality of lugs 15 thereon. between which a sheet metal casing 16 is mounted, said casing supporting said dial andbeing held against the plate 14 by a rear cover 17 secured to the lugs 15 by screws 18 or other suitable fastenings.

The trip mileage numeral wheels 11 are of the usual construction and, as shown in 'F '7. each numeral wheel is provided at the left with a gear 20 and at the right with a second gear 21. To the left of each gear 20 is a disc 22 and to the left of said disc is a carrying disc 23 having two teeth there- These teeth are adapted to engage a carrying pinion 24:, which is engaged not only by said teeth upon each conmlete revolution of said disc, but which mesh also with the adjacent gear 21 to advance the latter one tooth in effecting the carrying operation, in a manner which is well understood in the art. The carrying pinions 24 are mounted on a shaft 25.

The. resetting mechanism consists of a pluon the line ralit-y of resetting gears 26, each of which is in mesh with one: of the gears 20, each gear 26 being mounted on a suitable collar 27, which latter is arranged to turn' with the shaft 28, said shaft being supported at opposite ends in brackets 29 and 30. (Figs. 7 and 8.) The collars 27 are fixed to said shaft by pins 31, which also pass through sleeves 32, a circular spring pawl 33 being confined between each sleeve and each gear 26. (Figs. 4 and 7.) Each spring pawl as shown in Fig. 4, is so arran ed that its free end tends to spring inwardly and en gage a notch 34 in the gear 26, each gear having only one such notch the arrangement being in effect a pawl and ratchet mechanism the notch corresponding to a single tooth of a ratchet wheel. The gears 26, during the normal operation or forward movement of the counter, turn freely on the sleeves 27 in one direction without interference from the spring pawls 33. However, when the shaft 28 is rotated and said collars and spring pawls are also rotated, the ends of the spring pawls snap into the notches 34 and rotate the gears 26, which in turn rotate the gears 20 and restore the numeral wheels to zero position. To effect this restoration the shaft 28 is rocked by the operator by means of a handle constituting part of a plate 35, said plate having an arc-shaped slot therein, one wall of which constitutes a curved rack or segment 36, in mesh with the pinion 37, (Fig. 6) the latter being mounted on the shaft 28, so as to turn therewith and thereby restore the numeral wheels to zero position when the operator depresses the handle. This operation increases the tension of a coiled spring 38 surrounding the shaft 28 with one end fixed in bracket 30, said spring serving to restore said handle, and other parts associated with said shaft. to initial position.

In order to determine the zero position accurately, each gear 26 carries a properly located pin 40. During the forward rotation of the counter wheels 11 said pins rotate without obstruction, but when the operator depresses the handle to restore said numeral Wheels to zero position, a plurality of stop levers indicated generally by the number 41 are rocked by spring 43, which rotates their supporting shaft 42 on which they are mounted, thereby interposing their hooked ends as stops in the paths of said pins igs. 4 and 5) and arresting the rotation of the numeral wheels with the zero showing through the opening in the dial. The downward movement of the stops is effected by a spring 43 which engages the end one of a lever 41 constituting one of said levers 41 and hence. tends to hold all of them in lowermost positions. As shown in Fig. 4, said end lever 41 isof slightly different configuration from the other two. To prevent backward rotation of the gear 26, a series of further stop levers or 'pawls 44 are provided which are loosely mounted or pivoted on the shaft 42, and which are normally pressed downwardly by coiled springs 45. One of them as shown in Fig. 8 is bent under the arm 41. When the gears 26 rotate in such a direction as to restore the numeral wheels to zero, during the normal operation of the counter, or when said numeral wheels are being advanced to reset them to zero by the sprin pawls 33, the pins 40 ride under sai levers 44, as shown in Fig. 5. Backward rotation of said gears, due to friction of the spring pawls thereon when the operating lever is being restored to initial position, is prevented by the engagement of said ins with said stop levers.

The three evers 41 are not mounted directly on the shaft 42, but are rigidly mounted on collars 46, which latter are fixed to said shaft so as to turn therewith. Hence, the rocking of said shaft results in rocking all three of said stop levers to' move them to operative position or to restore them. Said shaft is permitted to rock by moving the hand-actuated lever or plate 35, which has a hub-sleeve or collar 47 (Fig. 8) mounted loosely on said shaft but having a notch therein which receives a pin 48, fixed in said shaft, whereby, as said plate is restored to initial or uppermost position by the action of the spring 38, the wall or edge of the notch engages the dogpin 48, whereby all three levers 41 are lifted to inoperative position. When the operator presses down on the handle :35, the edge of the notch moves away from the pin 48, and spring 43 then moves said levers 41 to operative position. The collar 47 fits loosely over the shaft 42, but is held in position by the plate 35, which is in engagement with the pinion 37 and is held against lateral movement by a pair of collars 49 on opposite sides of said pinion. The outer end of the plate 35 is twisted at right angles to form a handle 50 which projects through a slot 51 in the plate 14.

It will be seen that the arrangement of the resetting mechanism is such that the numeral wheels are reset by advancing them to zero position, instead of turning them backward, and as a result the operation of the carryin mechanism is not interfered with, shoul the'carrying occur simultaneously with the resetting.

In order to permit the automobile to run backward without rotating the numeral wheels, additional pawl and ratchet mechanism is provided, as shown in Figs. 7 and 9. A spring pawl 52 is secured to each of the ears 21 and engages any one of a plurality of recesses 53 in the adjacent numeral wheel 11.

The notches 53 are constructed with radially disposed abrupt shoulders which are engaged by the sprin pawl 52 when it is advancing the gear w eel .21, but they are so constructed that if the gear wheel 21 is advanced, the corresponding spring pawl 52 will remain stationary and will simply slip out over the inclined rear face of the notch. In other words, the effect of a ratchet and pawl is secured in which the ratchet would have the same number of teeth as there are notches 53. This construction permits the gear wheel 21 and the number wheels corresponding to it to be rotated in a forward direction in setting it to zero, and also permits the automobile to be run backwards without. affecting the counter wheels.

Means are also provided for permitting the adjustment of the tri mileage to correspond with the guide-Eook mileage, in other words, the operator may move the numeral wheels, shown in Fig. 7, for example, to give any desired reading. This adjustment is accomplished bi additional gears 54 which are in mesh wit the respective gears 20, as shown in Figs. 3 and 10. Said gears 54 are mounted on a plurality of telescoping shafts 55, 56 and 57, said shafts havin knurled discs 58 mounted on the other en thereof and accessible through the lower part of the opening 51.

In the operation of the zero reset mechanism, it will be evident that when the handactuated lever or plate 35 is depressed, the first part of its movement operates to carry the edge of the notch in the hubsleeve 47 away from the dog-pin 48, whereupon the spring 43 acting upon stop lever 41 will rock the shaft 42 and move all of the stop levers 41 and 41 into the paths of the stop pins carried by their corresponding resetting gears 26. During the remainder of the movement segment 36 operates of the stop levers 41 and 41*. In this position of the reset gears, all of the number wheels 11 will be in their zero position. Rotation of the pinion 37 during the downward movement of the segment 36, winds up the spring 38 and as soon as the lever 35 is released this spring rotates the pinion 37 in a backward direction so as to restore the lever 525 to its normal or raised position. This, of course, produces a backward rotation of the shaft 28 but this does not produce any rotation in the gears 26 by reason of the ratchet and pawl efi'ect se cured by the spring pawls 33 and their correspondin co-operating notches 34.

It will be apparent that, the invention is not limited to the embodiment thereof denumber wheels, and carryln scribed herein, as various changes may be made in the structure illustrated and in the adaption thereof pointed out herein,.without departing from the invention as expressed in the appended claims.

What I claim is:

1. In zero-setting mechanism for a counter having number wheels, the combination of a plurality of wheels corresponding to the stop pins mounted so as to substantially align with each other when the counter wheels are in their zero osition, a plurality of stop levers correspon in respectively to the said stop pins, a han -actuated member, means for actuating the stop-levers by the first part of the movement of the hand-actuated member to bring the stop levers into the paths of the stop-pins, and means actuated during the remainder of the movement of the hand-actuated member to rotate the number wheels to their zeroposition.

2. In zero-setting mechanism,the combination of a plurality of wheels carrying stoppins mounted so as to substantially align with each other when the counter wheels are in their zero position, a plurality of stop levers corresponding, respectively, to the said stop pins, resilient means pressing the stop levers toward the path of the stop pins, a hand-actuated member having means operating in the normal position of the handactuated member to hold said stop levers out of the paths of the pins whereby the actuation of said hand-actuated member permits said resilient means to move the levers into the paths of the stop pins, and means actuated by the movement of the handactuated member to rotate the number wheels to their zero position.

3. In zero-setting mechanism, the combination of the plurality of number wheels, a number wheel gear corresponding toreach number wheel and coaxial therewith for rotating the same, a shaft mounted substantially parallel with the axis of the number wheels, a plurality of re-setting gear wheels loosely mounted on the shaft and meshing respectively with the number wheel gears, said re-setting gear wheels each having a stop pin, a hand-actuated lever, a plurality of stop levers, a spring tending to move the stop levers into the paths of thepins, means associated with the hand-actuated lever for holding the stop levers out of the paths of the pins, and permitting the spring to move them into the paths of the pins when the hand-actuated lever is operated, a ratchet and pawl connection between said shaft and each resetting gear to enable the shaft to rotate the resetting gears, and means for rotating said shaft by the hand-actuated member, to rotate the number wheels to their zero osition. I,

4. n zero-setting mechanism, the combination of a plurality of number wheels, a number wheel gear corresponding to each number wheel and coaxial therewith for rotating the same, a shaft mounted substantially parallel with the axis of the number wheels, a plurality of resetting gear wheels loosely mounted on the shaft and meshing respectively with the number wheel gears, said resetting gear wheels each having a stop pin, a hand-actuated lever, a second shaft havin a dog-pin, a plurality of stop levers rigidly attached on the second shaft, a spring tending to rotate the second shaft to move the stop levers into the paths of the pins. a hand-actuated lever having a sleeve loosely mounted on the second shaft, said sleeve having means for engaging the dogpin to hold the stop levers normlally raise and out of the paths of the stop pins, said handactuated lever having a segment, a pinion on the fiist-named shaft for rotating the same, and meshing with the segment, a spring associated with the first named shaft for holding the hand-actuated lever raised, and thereby hold the stop-levers out of the paths of the stop pins, a ratchet and pawl connection between said first named shaft and each re-setting gear whereby the first part of the movement of the hand-actuated member permits the stop levers to be moved by their spring into the paths of the step pins, and the latter part of the movement of the hand-actuated member effects a rotation of the gears to advance the same until the stop-pins will engage the stop levers.

5. In zero-setting mechanism, the combination of a plurality of number Wheels, a number wheel gear corresponding to each number wheel and coaxial therewith for ro tating the same, a shaft mounted substanti'ah levers rigidly attached on the second shaft, a plurality of pawls loosely mounted on said second shaft and co-operatlng with said stoppins to permit their rotation in a forward direction only, a spring tending to rotate the second shaft to move the stop levers in to the paths of the pins, a hand-actuated lever havin a sleeve loosely mounted on the second shaft, said sleeve having means for engaging the dog-pin to hold the stop levers normally raised and out of the paths of the stop pins, said hand-actuated lever having a segment, a pinion on the first-named shaft for rotating the same, and meshing with the segment, a spring associated with the first named shaft for holding the hand-actuated lever raised, and thereby hold the stop-levers out'of the paths of the stop-pins, a ratchet and pawl connection between said firstnamed shaft and each re-setting gear whereby the first part of the movement of the hand-actuated member permits the stop levers to be moved by their spring into the paths of the stop-pins, and the latter part of the movement of the hand-actuated member effects a rotation of the gears to advance the same until the stop-pins will engage the stop levers.

6. In zero-setting mechanism for a counter, the combination of a plurality of wheels corresponding to the number wheels of the counter and carrying stop pins mounted so as to substantially align with each other when the counter wheels are at their zero position, a plurality of stop levers corresponding respectively to the said stop pins, a hand-actuated member, means released by the first part of the movement of the handactuated member and operating to move the stop levers into the paths of the stop pins, and means actuated during the remainder of the movement of the hand-actuated member to rotate the number wheels to the zero position.

In testimony whereof, I have subscribed my name.

JOHN L. WHEELER. 

